The Visitor

By Michael M., Weymouth, MA

The visitor walked down the street , down the middle of the street. The few cars that remained on the street were motionless, sad reminders of a nonexistent race. A reddish haze colored the sky. An awesome silence surrounded and engulfed the stranger. Not a sound was heard, not one sound at all. The world seemed to be stuck in one position , unmoving , held in place and still. The I.R.S. still owed people money, but they had a better reason for not paying now. The government no longer had to worry about education, the EPA, human rights, or even the next election. Perhaps it was better. No smoke was being pumped into the sky. No more traffic accidents or people hurrying. Time was only night and day, and sometimes even they were indiscernible because of the red sky.

The street lights were on, but they were dimmed because the generators had been left untended for some time. Soon they would go out, enhancing the unearthly sensation that pervaded this still scene. The visitor moved slowly, pensively. AMelnea Cass' the sign said. The stranger turned left, onto Tremont Street, the right onto Ruggles. He passed Ruggles Street Station, a looming architectural monster where people had rushed back and forth (always in a hurry , if only they had slowed down and looked at what was happening); where subway trains had made great noise entering the station was dead, killed by the silence; the silence that permeated everything: every brick of every building, the pavement that the visitor stood on, that seeped through every crack in every sidewalk until it had become the city. Finally he came to Wentworth Institute of Technology , how ironic that they should build a temple to the god that had annihilated them, thought the stranger. Past the Museum of Fine Arts he went, where Renoirs and Picassos were sealed away in glass enclosed rooms, hopefully protected from the red haze.

Still the stranger searched. He came upon the Fens. The garden lay still, all the plants and flowers dead, the grass charred. There was no buzz of bee or call of bird. Still the awesome silence remained, heavy in the air, and deafening.

As the visitor passed Fenway Park he noticed a sign , "Beware of Dogs" , but the only dog lay in the street, a half-rotted corpse. The stranger went in. The Green Wall was chipped and peeling. No K's hung on the bleacher wall. One lone World Series banner hung in the lifeless breeze. It must have been sweet, that victory, but it could not be enjoyed or savored now. The great electric scoreboard was dark. The aisles still lay littered with empty containers. Once, Rocket Roger had pitched from the mound here. But no more ...and never again. The visitor left.

The visitor walked up Yawkey Way. The gas station at the end of the street had broken windows. A ramshackle car sat in the parking lot. Across the street was a liquor store. The windows were broken here, also, and the shattered glass lay everywhere. Liquor sat on the shelves, a thick red dust coating the bottles. Some bottles had been taken. The owner hadn't cared , currency meant nothing.

Still the stranger searched. Nothing. One more stop , the Boston Garden.

The parquet floor was still there and the banners still hung from the ceiling. Where was Larry Bird? Where was Johnny Most? Not here. Even they had succumbed to the symptoms of diarrhea and nausea. Saddened, the visitor left.

The alien made his way to his spaceship. The ship glowed with an incandescent blue, but made no sound. The alien boarded and took one last look at the billboard that warned to buckle up. The alien laughed , buckling up had been the least of the humans' worries.

The famous war that would end all wars had been waged. The final battles had taken place.The dangerous, rash game had been played , with no winners. The button had been pushed (the alien knew not which side had pushed it and did not care), and cities had been hit. Radiation overtook Boston. Now there was no life on earth except for the alien and millions of cockroaches. They had been unaffected, in their protective exoskeletons. There would be no Madd Max, as the movies had predicted , it was impossible. Too advanced for their own good, thought the alien. They couldn't handle their own power, they had ended their own lives. The alien left ... The silence remained. n